Players no longer up to standard

Re my point using Houghton above perhaps I should have been clearer. We all know he had a decent career but the point I was trying to make is that a few weeks before he scored in Giants Stadium he was sitting on the bench as an unused sub when Villa won the Coca Cola Cup. Ditto Alan McLaughlin, ditto Matt Holland. McAteer wasn't even playing at all afaik when he scored against Holland. 

We need as many options as possible. That doesn't mean we should be starting Sammon but it means we need to consider our resources. 2nd seeds or not, we are at a similar level as the likes of Israel, Norway, Austria or Hungary and going backwards and until such a time as the FAI or govt invest seriously over 10-15 years in the academic side of football we are going to be a team of yesteryear. Some lads on here still seem to think it's 1993 I get the impression. There's no Terry Phelan booting down the wing any more lads. 

We put all our proverbial eggs in the one basket (England's leagues) and while that was alright in the pre Premier League times, but in the last 15 years the influx of young foreign players in England has put all the home nations on the backfoot in the long term. In addition, "weaker" teams are not a soft touch anymore and have come on a lot in the last 10 years.

People here saying Ward is sh!te or Long can't finish his dinner don't seem to realize there is nothing else there after Robbie is gone. O'Dea is actually playing in a higher standard leaque than most of the squad yet some consider him to be useless. I'm not a great fan of Whelan but christ he's been involved in crucial games like Moscow and Paris plus Euro 2012 yet the populist front of Judea here is saying he should never play again, instead bring in the imaginary Irish next Jan Ceulemans and Denis Irwin II to replace Ward. 

Laughable reading here at times.